


05:00

by kaegays



Category: Ensemble Stars! (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, brief ref to mikas....... eating habits again, generally just mika going down A Train Of Thought at 2 am SBZNJDDEHN, military camp bullshit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-05
Updated: 2019-04-05
Packaged: 2020-01-04 23:57:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18354374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaegays/pseuds/kaegays
Summary: They really don't belong here.





	05:00

**Author's Note:**

> for once the only context i need to give is that this was written and finished in february actually i just never posted it bc i was hesitant LOL far from the worst thing ive written content wise but i still wasn't sure. it was just riding the impulse of 'ok mika.... but he got sent to that military camp' this is literally just impulse after impulse after impulse  
> have fun this is old i have nothing else to show until i can come up with stuff again LMAO

Mika is asleep. He is soundly sleeping, breathing soft and dreaming of warm soup and sunshine and everyone gathered together like a family and smiling. He dreams of the safety of the other kids and of his friends and of that god-like person who picked the filthy him out of the dump and gave him reason to think people weren’t entirely awful. Maybe if he thinks that hard enough, it’ll actually happen and he’ll stop feeling like something’s waiting for him to sleep to feast on his flesh, stop feeling what he swears is a hand on his cheek. Sure, he has a roommate, but Bakkun would  _not_  be touching his cheek in the middle of the night,  _that’s weird,_ but then what is it?!

 

…It’s usually so hard to remember, but he is a child. He’s not that old at all, it hasn’t even been a year since that day… He shouldn’t be harsh on himself for being afraid of the dark, but all he can hear is scold after scold after scold, insults about how he’s being a baby and how he needs to grow up already, but the silence ringing in his ears reminds him that it’s not like that at all, he isn’t being harassed even when trying to sleep. He doesn’t even hear it much during the day, trying his hardest to stick to himself and stay shadow-like, live up to his name and not be anything to pay attention to or stare at or yell at.

 

Maybe it’s excessive caution, but you can’t be too careful. He’s not used to being around this many other boys anyways, so even with the girls there he wasn’t going to feel at ease… There’s nothing to feel at ease about. They’re being taught things they’re expected to die using, and for kids like him there’s nobody who would care. Even as just an orphan rat child like before, there were people who would’ve even celebrated it, so…?

 

It leaves a heavy, empty feeling in his chest to think that way; a feeling that kind of makes him want to run off again, but he can’t keep lapsing like that over every stupid little thing, so he just buries his face into his pillow and hugs it tighter. He hates thinking this much, it starts getting weird and it’s keeping him up but he just wants to  _sleep_  but even hiding his face like this leaves him anxious and he gives it up to make sure he isn’t going to be attacked by what lurks in the dark.

 

It’s stupid and childish, he should be more mature, but he’s  _8 years old, he doesn’t belong here, Bakkun doesn’t belong here, Yukkun doesn’t belong here,_ _ **kids don’t belong here.**_

 

And yet here they were, and for what reason? What good reason is there for this to be happening? He just… Doesn’t get it. Maybe he will when he’s older.

 

(A few years would pass, and if Mika were to sit down and consider those years, he’d have to say that it makes even less sense at 16 than it did at 8. But he doesn’t, because even though his memory isn’t bad enough to erase it, he doesn’t want to touch upon it much either. Ibara and Yuzuru were probably the best parts of it. Mostly Ibara.)

 

Mika tries not to make too much noise with all of his tossing and turning, out of respect for Ibara’s rest, but he still does it. This is probably the 1000th time he has, but he hasn’t kept count. His eyes feel so heavy but they just won’t close. He doesn’t intend to stare, but he rolls over to try and look over at Ibara, some silly search for the comfort of just having someone else in the room with him while he tries to convince himself that he’s asleep and will wake up to see another day.

 

It probably looks silly, considering he’s the shyest person there and Ibara is hardly saintly despite his biblical interests. But he’s not a bad person; Bakkun is a kind person and even when people are sucky, he knows and accepts that Bakkun really is just human, but he’s a particularly kind one. He makes the active choice to be comfortable with him and believe in him, there’s no real trick to it unless he’s made a fool of himself and got strung along.

 

But there wasn’t anything to gain from making friends with the stupid, closed off, odd eyed him, really? So there’s no advantage to it other than an attack dog, but he can’t even do that right because he’s clumsy and borderline sickly and won’t eat more than what keeps him alive and struggles with even the ‘staying alive’ part of it, his brain not registering the pain of anything from stubbing his toe to a serious wound. Not that he has gotten severely wounded here, not yet, but it’s a real possibility and one he’s not equipped to understand. He does have problems understanding when he needs to eat. Though he does also just actively ignore it, a bit.

 

Old habits die hard. Scolding wasn’t going to be enough to get him to eat better.

 

…He doesn’t understand the motivation behind it, he might never get it with how stupid he is, but he is grateful. He always will be. To the person who would bother with the useless, ugly, bitter him… It feels like it means the world in his eyes, though it probably seems much more inconsequential to others. Being roommates did not give either of them any obligation to care about the other, and Mika would’ve been fine with one-sidedly worrying and caring for Ibara, whether or not he wanted it.

 

But that’s not what happened, somehow. And somehow, he ended up talking with both him and Yuzuru, and somehow… It wasn’t that scary. They were stronger, tougher people than him, but he never really felt like he was being intimidated into submission? He wouldn’t remotely compare it to being taken care of or coddled or doted on or even loved, exactly, but he didn’t feel like he was going to get his face pressed into the dirt by their boots for saying something they didn’t like, either. Comfortable it was not, but he did not feel threatened, and that was a step in the right direction. Relaxing it was not, but it was significantly less stressful than most of the others.

 

Would he call them friends? Maybe, it was certainly friendlier than any other interactions he’s had with kids outside of the orphanage. He wasn’t getting taunted and tormented constantly, nor did it escalate into something that made him feel like he’d rather not be out of bed that morning. It was a reason to get up, if anything at all. He’d consider this the closest he’s gotten to it, even with the hesitation to call it friendship outright. Mostly it was fear of it not being mutual and embarrassing himself and earning his dose of harassment.

 

He can’t say with absolute certainty that it wouldn’t happen, because he hasn’t known anyone here for long enough to put complete trust in them to not hurt him. He’s too weary to put full faith in either of the people he hangs out with, even if he’s found himself attached to Bakkun. He’d love to be able to, but he just can’t. Not yet.

 

He’s internally treating it the same as school, but the truth of the matter is that it’s not. This is not something he should treat as lightly as he does, yet at the end of the day, despite all that he thinks… He really can’t bring himself to treat this any other way, and besides, Bakkun has it worse, has  _had_  it worse than him, so…? He doesn’t have the right to complain in the first place. He’ll just take it in stride until he bursts again. It’s not going to be that long that he’s here, right? He’s not going to be here for a long time, right? He only just recently lapsed into that state but it’s fine, that just means he can take things on again, it’s fine, it’s fine.

 

There’s no right for someone like him to complain about it. What time is it? 2 AM? Is… Is he reading that clock right? Ugh, it feels humiliating that he’s not sure about that, but nobody can hear so he has nothing to feel ashamed of. It’s fine.

 

He’s doing a lot of convincing himself tonight, huh? He really needs to fall asleep already, but it’s still too dark to feel comfortable and Bakkun isn’t close enough to make him feel safe either. How long is he going to have to wait…?

 

…He’s glad he was able to meet Ibara, even under these circumstances. It’s fine if he wasn’t in the budget, if he got kicked out ten years early, if he wasn’t ever going to see the day his parents take him back in and say it was a mistake. Saegusa Ibara was one of a kind, and he’s glad he was able to meet him, even if he were to eventually grow to hate Mika, see him as trash beneath his feet. Ibara had the air of someone destined for greatness, and it’d surely reach even someone like him when it happened.

Or maybe he’s just silly and dramatic; maybe he just wants to think that he’ll get what he deserves instead of just rotting in the depths of the future awaiting people like them. That is, the non-future. The future of homelessness and night jobs if any or in their case as child soldiers. The future of being less-than because of stupidity out of their control. Ibara was smart and strong and had a commanding but kind character; he would fit right into something that gave him power, Mika’d like to think. You’re forced to observe someone’s character sometimes, and that’s the kind of impression he’s got of the boy named Saegusa Ibara, even when he’s not a year older than Mika himself. He’s not particularly perceptive, but these are the things that stood out to a boy with cotton for a brain.

 

…He just wants for him to have a better life, is all. And maybe it’s dumb to care so much in so little time when he doesn’t even fully trust him, but he’s not a bad kid and he doesn’t deserve to be drug down into hell with the rest of them. Yuzuru is safe from it; they are not. But Mika wouldn’t even mind living like this, it’s no better nor worse than what he had, he wants to think. At least this way he’d have something, at least this way his death would mean something.

 

It’s probably bad for an 8 year old to think this way, but this is the kind of reality the older kids were preparing for, and if he’s old enough to leave he’s old enough to think about it. Somehow it’s even more exhausting than the physical exercise or the lack of sleep. He’s afraid, but it has to be faced sooner or later, and he’d rather steel himself for it than pretend for even a second he’ll get anything better. Maybe it’s overly pessimistic, maybe he doesn’t have the right, but nobody’s in his head and he’ll never say these things aloud. There are things he will and will not be honest about, even when he prefers honesty to weaving lies for his own sake; because it was never for anyone else, the one bit of selfishness he allows for himself.

 

What did Ibara even want for himself? Was he truly content with this? Had he ever thought to run away? Had he ever thought to seek something else for his life? Or was he wanting this? Content with it? Yuzuru had the Himemiya family to go back to alongside his own, but what of Ibara…?

 

His hands grip the case of the pillow, and then release it entirely, a soft sigh and a hand to his forehead. It aches, but it translates more to feeling funny than something that hurts. He doesn’t know what something like that would feel like. He doesn’t want to ask and look stupid. Stupider, he’s sure he already seems like the dumbest one here… He wasn’t as well educated as others. Even Bakkun.

 

The clock reads 5:30… probably? He’s not even tired anymore, doing stupid things like measuring his fingers against each other and seeing how poking his eye feels different from scratching his arm. It’s self-harm, by all means, but there’s nothing but boredom fueling it, and it’s nothing that should leave scars. He’s not trying to hurt himself, he’s trying to learn to differentiate things when he’s short of something important to humans. He won’t ever fall asleep at this rate, so why even pretend to bother when the sun is almost up and his body isn’t screaming that it wants rest? He’s digging deeper and deeper of a grave for himself, but he was going to reach it no matter what he did. He neither welcome nor shooed the concept away, mixed feelings and apprehension. A reluctant acceptance that would probably earn him strange looks.

 

He’s being stupidly emo about it, probably, but he’s allowed to feel things as long as he doesn’t complain or become too obvious about having given up. If he gets abandoned a third time, he… Doesn’t know what he’d do.

 

He sucks in a breath, abrupt and shaking and strained. He shouldn’t go there. Even if it’s true, going there means bad things. Deep breaths, swallow down the urge to whimper, squeeze your eyes shut and hold back the stinging. Slow, deep breaths. You’ll be okay as long as you don’t mess up again, just don’t make any more mistakes, you’re on thin ice. He hadn’t planned on getting up, but he’s compelled to throw off his blanket and crawl out of his bed, pillow left thrown on the floor in his unnecessary haste. His breathing isn’t that much calmer, he still has to watch it, still has to be careful not to stumble over his own feet in the dark. Because not everyone is such a disaster, and Bakkun deserves to sleep well, sleep a little longer. He doesn’t actually know how deep he sleeps, but he would’ve said something by now if he was awake, probably?

 

He doesn’t escape without a few bumps and bruises, but at least it wasn’t anything too noisy, it didn’t seem to have woken him up. Which is good, and his uniform would cover up most unseemly things anyways. There was no hiding his eyes, but… Everyone is usually too busy to stare at their grossness anyways. He’s thankful for it. The door creaks a little in his attempts to open it quietly, but he steps out early without problem, the sun finally beginning to rise and shine down on their camp.


End file.
